Ricciardo happy to be 'in the ball park' in Baku

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Daniel Ricciardo was understandably positive about how free practice had gone in Baku on Friday.

Ricciardo was second fastest in FP1, albeit almost half a second off the pace of his Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen. He closed the gap to 0.111s in FP2 but slipped to third place after being pipped by Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.

Despite that, Ricciardo was happier with his afternoon performance than he had been with the earlier outing.

"Even though I was second fastest this morning I wasn’t fully content with my session," the Australian admitted.

"I knew there was still room to improve in myself and the car.

"I believe we made those improvements in the afternoon and I’m generally a lot happier with where we ended the day," he continued. "This afternoon was a lot more entertaining. The grip was coming and you could really start to push the car."

Ricciardo's day was arguably smoother than Verstappen's, despite the Dutch driver being faster. For one thing, Ricciardo avoided ending the day in the barriers like his team mate.

Verstappen tops FP2 but ends the day in the barrier

"There’s not much room for error," he said. "It’s a pretty high risk circuit in terms of mistakes but that makes it really challenging and rewarding.

"When you are able to put in a good lap you cross the finish line and smile," he added.

Friday had certainly gone well for the team. While Ricciardo wasn't in the mood to count chickens going into qualifying, he was happy to be among the top times - especially compared with the one second deficit he'd suffered to his rivals in Montreal.

"It’s been a good day for myself and Max and great that we were in the top three in both sessions," he said.

"Like always, we should not celebrate on a Friday. But we are in the ball park, so hopefully tomorrow we can stay at the front."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.